Brad, did you evet stoop low enough to sell magic across the counter? For you, turning over the top and bottom cards of a packet of three may be child's play. I can assure you getting enthusiastic twelve-year-olds or sixty-year-old enthusiasts through Emerson and West's (or Jim Temple, I don't know who wrote those terse instructions) page of crap documentation remains difficult.

With Scott's version, all you need is to remember the story. Now I have one more great trick to expand the repertoire of my growing throng of magic minions.

You, like me and probably like Scott, remembered another packet trick out at the same time that used strippers to effect a similar trick.

I forgot about it. You came up with a version and . . . shared it with all the cool magicians?

Scott pimped the idea to Royal Magic and is making some bank. I'm chuffed because I can now do the trick without the wonky quick 3Way sleight. More importantly it's made a really good trick available to a wider group of magicians.

I fear you and I see magic very, very differently. I'll work on my skill, can I get you to be a little more enthusiastic?

Kent, I also remember when Earl Nelson worked the counter at Loftus! I bought the red and green Frank Garcia books from him, based on his demo of items from them. Great memories! This would have been in the early '70s.

Earl was the first really good magician I ever saw. My dad visited his buddy, Mr. Wilson's at his bookstore. Mr. Wilson did a pretty mean French drop. As he and my dad hung out Saturdays, I'd go to 119 1/2 South Main street.

Earl sold me the nexus of my collection of books. The Garcia books literally fell to pieces from being dragged onto submarines, with me. I have replaced them. Earl also sold me The Stars of Magic. Those tricks still form the core of my magical life.

I wonder how many little magicians he inspired and guided. I can name two.

Kent, no one liked the ‘wonky’ sleight you spoke of. It’s why most magicians stopped doing the trick. Many have tried various work arounds. The double I suggest gets the job done and is no more difficult than most moves already in the tool box of most intermediate magicians. My comment is directed at them, not children looking to spend their pocket change on a diversion. This is why I made it in a magic forum and not on a swing set. (And experience has Shown that many magicians who have tried to solve this problem have overlooked this as a possible solution. I think it’s a case of being so obvious most people just don’t consider it.)

And lest you think I’m trying to disparage Scott’s offering, you should know i shared this information when I offered a ‘revisited review’ of color Monte in my Genii review column months ago following the death of Emerson.

I did share my handling with a group of magicians a few years back. I don’t know that any of them were cool. One thing they admired was that it’s possible to orchestrate the routine so all the turnovers appear consistent. And that the use of stripped cards is not obvious (by avoiding the traditional grip and strip action.). I was going to share that in my review as well, but as the color Monte revisit was included to fill some missing words in the column it would have defeated the purpose by over exceeding my needs.

Scott may have been the first to sell the idea, but he wasn’t the first to have it. Nor was I. I have seen others do similar things with that very trick, though they all suffered from the inconsistency in handling.

Thank you for your amplifications and edifications. I genuinely appreciate your insights and you've encouraged me to find a cleaner handling. I suspect the answer, for me, lies in end stripping the cards. I'll bust out some tools tonight.

As to why Royal chose to put Pro Version on the packaging: really, you must ask. Don't ask me. Certainly don't ask rhetorical questions. It makes you sound wonky.

I (like many of you) performed Color Monte in my youth scores of times. For some reason the alignment move never really bothered me as a kid. (I was apparently an outlier then, although I have come to see the light in later years!)

In 1983 I ran into Larry Jennings at the Magic Castle. He told me he’d come up with a version of Marlo’s “Quick Three-Way” where each display action was uniform. When he demonstrated it for me, I said, “I think it’s really good. I thought so when I came up with it some time back, and it was published last week.”

“Slide Three-Way” appeared in the booklet Majorminor, and was later included in Jon Racherbaumer’s Counthesaurus in 2004.

Another weird thing about Color Monte. In the sets I had as a kid, they were printed in shiny colored foil printing. I had several spectators speculate after the trick that somehow the foil printing changed color depending on how the card was held in the light. Obviously, a provably false theory, but it would be nice to have cards not printed in foil to remove that suspicion. Are the new cards printed with foil as well?

There's an old thing I've used for Color Monte. Not sure who it belongs to, maybe J.K. Hartman. Basically, you display each card before slipping it to the bottom. Single, double, single. I'm one of the weird ones that never minded the alignment move though. Layman don't care.

The alignment move bothered me as a kid. Not enough to make me want to switch to stripped cards, but enough to add a line that “explains” the move, and frankly, moves the script along. I’ve added that line whenever I’ve taught the trick to someone. It’s simply this: as you do the move, (which bears the outward appearance of an effort to display the top and middle cards) you say, “...and I’ll give you two more chances.”

The first time, “I’ll give you two more chances” leads into “I said okay, it’s on the top...”

The second time around, when showing you’ve got three “money cards” the line goes, “...There’s a money card right here on the bottom. That’s four dollars you owe me, and I’ll give you two more chances. I don’t need two more chances, if it’s on the bottom it can’t be on the top...”

Ryan Matney wrote:There's an old thing I've used for Color Monte. Not sure who it belongs to, maybe J.K. Hartman. Basically, you display each card before slipping it to the bottom. Single, double, single. I'm one of the weird ones that never minded the alignment move though. Layman don't care.

Hi, Ryan:I tried to follow this with card in hand: I can see how if you do a turnover and show the top card, then put a single card to the bottom, wouldn't the double show a different card?

Ryan Matney wrote:There's an old thing I've used for Color Monte. Not sure who it belongs to, maybe J.K. Hartman. Basically, you display each card before slipping it to the bottom. Single, double, single. I'm one of the weird ones that never minded the alignment move though. Layman don't care.

Hi, Ryan:I tried to follow this with card in hand: I can see how if you do a turnover and show the top card, then put a single card to the bottom, wouldn't the double show a different card?

Yeah, I was being a little vague. Thought someone might comment with the credit.

Here's the full sequence. You are holding three face down cards. The top card of the three will be displayed three times.

Turn over the top card onto the packet to display its face. Then, turn it face down and execute a double push off. Your right hand takes the double and slips it to the bottom of the packet.

Next, perform a double turnover to display the same card a second time. Turn the double face down and take off the top single card and, again, tuck it under the packet and onto the bottom.

Finally, turn over a single card to display the same face for a third time. For consistency, turn the card face down one last time and put it on the bottom of the packet.

Jonathan Townsend wrote:Okay, here's what I recall:The key is that you are going to push a card to the side with your thumb and then pick it up to show its face, then replace it on top of the packet before displacing it to the bottom of the packet.You shold be a step back from your audience as the displays are faceOut rather than turnovers - but turnovers could work too.The packet starts face down in your left hand. The show card starts on top, two others underneath.Push the top card off to the side with your thumb.Then pick up the top card from that position.Show its face. Replace on top of the packet.Push off two cards as one and "put that on the bottom".Push off two cards and then pick them up as one apparently the same way as you did the first card.Show the face card of the double to the audience.Replace it (them) on top of the packet.Push off the top card and "put that on the bottom".Push off the top card and display to the audience.There are moments when it might startle wise-acres to snap a single card during the sequence.Hope this helps,Jon